Measurement-based modeling of bromine chemistry at the Dead Sea boundary layer ? Part 2: The influence of NO₂ on bromine chemistry at mid-latitude areas

International audienceUnderstanding the interaction between anthropogenic air pollution and Reactive Halogen Species (RHS) activity has had only limited support of direct field measurements, due to the fact that past field measurements of RHS have been mainly performed in Polar Regions. The present paper investigates the interaction between NO2 and Reactive Bromine Species (RBS) activity by model simulations based on extensive field measurements performed in the Dead Sea area, as described in a companion paper (Tas et al., 2006). The Dead Sea is an excellent natural laboratory for this investigation since elevated concentrations of BrO (up to more than 150 pptv) are frequently observed, while the average levels of NO2 are around several ppb. The results of the present study show that under the chemical mechanisms that occur at the Dead Sea, higher levels of NO2 lead to higher daily average concentrations of BrOX, as a result of an increase in the rate of the heterogeneous decomposition of BrONO2 that in turn causes an increase in the rate of the "Bromine Explosion" mechanism. The present study has shown that the influence of NO2 on BrOX production clearly reflects an enhancement of RBS activity caused by anthropogenic activity. However, above a certain threshold level of NO2 (daily average mixing ratios of 0.2 ppbv during RBS activity), the daily average concentrations of BrOX decrease for a further increase in the NO2 concentrations

Evolutionary game theory in growing populations

Existing theoretical models of evolution focus on the relative fitness advantages of different mutants in a population while the dynamic behavior of the population size is mostly left unconsidered. We here present a generic stochastic model which combines the growth dynamics of the population and its internal evolution. Our model thereby accounts for the fact that both evolutionary and growth dynamics are based on individual reproduction events and hence are highly coupled and stochastic in nature. We exemplify our approach by studying the dilemma of cooperation in growing populations and show that genuinely stochastic events can ease the dilemma by leading to a transient but robust increase in cooperationComment: 4 pages, 2 figures and 2 pages supplementary informatio

Measurement-based modeling of bromine chemistry in the boundary layer: 1. Bromine chemistry at the Dead Sea

International audienceThe Dead Sea is an excellent natural laboratory for the investigation of Reactive Bromine Species (RBS) chemistry, due to the high RBS levels observed in this area, combined with anthropogenic air pollutants up to several ppb. The present study investigated the basic chemical mechanism of RBS at the Dead Sea using a numerical one-dimensional chemical model. Simulations were based on data obtained from comprehensive measurements performed at sites along the Dead Sea. The simulations showed that the high BrO levels measured frequently at the Dead Sea could only partially be attributed to the highly concentrated Br? present in the Dead Sea water. Furthermore, the RBS activity at the Dead Sea cannot solely be explained by a pure gas phase mechanism. This paper presents a chemical mechanism which can account for the observed chemical activity at the Dead Sea, with the addition of only two heterogeneous processes: the "Bromine Explosion" mechanism and the heterogeneous decomposition of BrONO2. Ozone frequently dropped below a threshold value of ~1 to 2 ppbv at the Dead Sea evaporation ponds, and in such cases, O3 became a limiting factor for the production of BrOx (BrO+Br). The entrainment of O3 fluxes into the evaporation ponds was found to be essential for the continuation of RBS activity, and to be the main reason for the jagged diurnal pattern of BrO observed in the Dead Sea area, and for the positive correlation observed between BrO and O3 at low O3 concentrations. The present study has shown that the heterogeneous decomposition of BrONO2 has a great potential to affect the RBS activity in areas influenced by anthropogenic emissions, mainly due to the positive correlation between the rate of this process and the levels of NO2. Further investigation of the influence of the decomposition of BrONO2 may be especially important in understanding the RBS activity at mid-latitudes

Assembly and use of new task rules in fronto-parietal cortex

Severe capacity limits, closely associated with fluid intelligence, arise in learning and use of new task rules. We used fMRI to investigate these limits in a series of multirule tasks involving different stimuli, rules, and response keys. Data were analyzed both during presentation of instructions and during later task execution. Between tasks, we manipulated the number of rules specified in task instructions, and within tasks, we manipulated the number of rules operative in each trial block. Replicating previous results, rule failures were strongly predicted by fluid intelligence and increased with the number of operative rules. In fMRI data, analyses of the instruction period showed that the bilateral inferior frontal sulcus, intraparietal sulcus, and presupplementary motor area were phasically active with presentation of each new rule. In a broader range of frontal and parietal regions, baseline activity gradually increased as successive rules were instructed. During task performance, we observed contrasting fronto-parietal patterns of sustained (block-related) and transient (trial-related) activity. Block, but not trial, activity showed effects of task complexity. We suggest that, as a new task is learned, a fronto-parietal representation of relevant rules and facts is assembled for future control of behavior. Capacity limits in learning and executing new rules, and their association with fluid intelligence, may be mediated by this load-sensitive fronto-parietal network

Observation of Quantum Effects in sub Kelvin Cold Reactions

There has been a long-standing quest to observe chemical reactions at low temperatures where reaction rates and pathways are governed by quantum mechanical effects. So far this field of Quantum Chemistry has been dominated by theory. The difficulty has been to realize in the laboratory low enough collisional velocities between neutral reactants, so that the quantum wave nature could be observed. We report here the first realization of merged neutral supersonic beams, and the observation of clear quantum effects in the resulting reactions. We observe orbiting resonances in the Penning ionization reaction of argon and molecular hydrogen with metastable helium leading to a sharp increase in the absolute reaction rate in the energy range corresponding to a few degrees kelvin down to 10 mK. Our method is widely applicable to many canonical chemical reactions, and will enable a breakthrough in the experimental study of Quantum Chemistry

All talk and no action: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study of motor cortex activation during action word production

A number of researchers have proposed that the premotor and motor areas are critical for the representation of words that refer to actions, but not objects. Recent evidence against this hypothesis indicates that the left premotor cortex is more sensitive to grammatical differences than to conceptual differences between words. However, it may still be the case that other anterior motor regions are engaged in processing a word's sensorimotor features. In the present study, we used single- and paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation to test the hypothesis that left primary motor cortex is activated during the retrieval of words (nouns and verbs) associated with specific actions. We found that activation in the motor cortex increased for action words compared with non-action words, but was not sensitive to the grammatical category of the word being produced. These results complement previous findings and support the notion that producing a word activates some brain regions relevant to the sensorimotor properties associated with that word regardless of its grammatical category

The role of input noise in transcriptional regulation

Even under constant external conditions, the expression levels of genes fluctuate. Much emphasis has been placed on the components of this noise that are due to randomness in transcription and translation; here we analyze the role of noise associated with the inputs to transcriptional regulation, the random arrival and binding of transcription factors to their target sites along the genome. This noise sets a fundamental physical limit to the reliability of genetic control, and has clear signatures, but we show that these are easily obscured by experimental limitations and even by conventional methods for plotting the variance vs. mean expression level. We argue that simple, global models of noise dominated by transcription and translation are inconsistent with the embedding of gene expression in a network of regulatory interactions. Analysis of recent experiments on transcriptional control in the early Drosophila embryo shows that these results are quantitatively consistent with the predicted signatures of input noise, and we discuss the experiments needed to test the importance of input noise more generally.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures minor correction

Recognizing Speech in a Novel Accent: The Motor Theory of Speech Perception Reframed

The motor theory of speech perception holds that we perceive the speech of another in terms of a motor representation of that speech. However, when we have learned to recognize a foreign accent, it seems plausible that recognition of a word rarely involves reconstruction of the speech gestures of the speaker rather than the listener. To better assess the motor theory and this observation, we proceed in three stages. Part 1 places the motor theory of speech perception in a larger framework based on our earlier models of the adaptive formation of mirror neurons for grasping, and for viewing extensions of that mirror system as part of a larger system for neuro-linguistic processing, augmented by the present consideration of recognizing speech in a novel accent. Part 2 then offers a novel computational model of how a listener comes to understand the speech of someone speaking the listener's native language with a foreign accent. The core tenet of the model is that the listener uses hypotheses about the word the speaker is currently uttering to update probabilities linking the sound produced by the speaker to phonemes in the native language repertoire of the listener. This, on average, improves the recognition of later words. This model is neutral regarding the nature of the representations it uses (motor vs. auditory). It serve as a reference point for the discussion in Part 3, which proposes a dual-stream neuro-linguistic architecture to revisits claims for and against the motor theory of speech perception and the relevance of mirror neurons, and extracts some implications for the reframing of the motor theory